Single hen

[Battylady]

Hello! Am very excited as I got a new hen today, an 8 week old sussex hybrid. She's gorgeous! We had 2 ex batts up until a couple of weeks ago when one sadly went to the big eglu in the sky We have put new hen (Rose) with old hen (Donna) for a short while today and Donna did indeed have a little bit of a go at her - not anything like as bad as I thought it might be, but enough that I definitely did not want to leave them unsupervised - yet. They are sleeping apart tonight (Donna is in the kitchen!) I was just wondering how a situation like this is best dealt with? When Rose is so much smaller and younger I wonder how long it would be advisable to keep them apart? Do I just go down the line of chaperoning them until they make friends nicely? All advice warmly welcomed! Thanks!

[esta]

Hiyaa,

 

My advice is to put the chickens together, there will be fights and blood but the longer you wait the more the hassle. I've got 30 hens in a huge area and i have bantams battery hens and all other breeds including 2 5 months old chickens and they have all settled and are fine .

 

Its the mad house down here

 

If you need any thing please pm me

 

esta x

[sugarspice]

well i have just added 2 new chickens to my new run which already has 2 in it. what i did was on the first day let them go in the run for an hr but i divided it so that the old hens cud see them. then for the next 3 days slowly let them have longer togther before they went to bed. today i let them mingle together all day. big mistake. the old hens terrorized the newbies chasing and plucking feathers from them. so i rang the place where we got them from and she said to divide them up again for about a week.

 

just to confuse the matter i rang my vet to see what they suggested and they said i should have put them all in the same house on the 1st night and thay would have been fine. this is contradictory to all the other things i have read and been told to do.

[Daphne]

I'm sorry but I just can't agree that you should put your newbie in with your established hen sooner rather than later. Of course there are always exceptions which prove the rule, and having a lot of space will help a lot, but unless you do have that, 8 weeks is very young, she will be a lot smaller than Donna and unable to stand up for herself. I don't know how long she has been off heat, but most chicks this age will still be with their hatchmates or, if sold, at least with another their own age. Please take your time and give her the tlc she needs to thrive. She is still growing, not expecting to fight her corner.

[Egluntyne]

Please......don't put an eight week old chick in with an adult hen. There have been instances reported on the forum where the older hen has killed or badly injured the baby.

 

Have a look **here** and **here** for more info.

[chelsea]

I agree 8 weeks is too little to go in with big girlies I'm afraid.

 

We got our 2 newbies at 8 weeks and they are now 20 weeks but still tiny so we still havent intergrated our flocks yet.

 

Giving as much time as you possibly can before combining the flock will help greatly . Keep the hens seperate but still being able to see/smell each other will get them all used to each other. Eventually when your new arrival is bigger you could do some supervised free ranging just to see how they all get on together.

 

I wouldnt advise putting a hen in with fully grown hens until at least approx 20 weeks/depending on whether its a similar size to your original hens.

[Battylady]

Thank you very much everybody! We are keeping Rosie and Donna apart for the moment. Rosie (baby) has the eglu to herself and stays in the run, Donna is free ranging and spends a lot of time visiting her with the safety of bars between them - and all in a very friendly fashion. However, take Rosie out of the run, and Donna gets quite agressive (although of course we haven't let her get close enough to Rosie to hurt her). It's amazing how much Rosie has grown in just one week, so hopefully it won't be too long before she's big enough to make friends properly!

 

On a totally different note.... how can you tell the difference between boys and girls at 9 weeks?? We were told that Rosie is "80% definitely a girl"... but now that other 20% is starting to worry me. She's a light sussex and I've looked for info/pictures on the web, but am still wondering!!??

[Egluntyne]

Have a look at ** this thread**.

 

I'd leave it for a long while yet before you allow the hen and chick to live together.

 

Can you post a couple of pics of the little one?

[Battylady]

Thank you very much! For the life of me I can't work out how to post an image on this forum, so I have uploaded a couple of pix of Rosie here

http://www.westdorsetrspca.org/hens

.....What do you think, does she look like a girl???

[Egluntyne]

I'd say so.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

She's very pretty . Good luck with your introductions (I'm no help, I've never done it ).

[Cooks]

ahhh isn't she the sweetest little thing!